I have lived in Central America for five years. I lived without hot water for well over a year and without refrigeration for nine months. I lived without electricity for two months and with very limited electricity for another seven. I lived without running water for three months. I collected and used rain water for all my household needs for eighteen months. I lived in the rain forest without a dryer for three years and without a washer for two years. I washed my clothing by hand in salt water for seven months.
Why am I telling you all this?
It wasn't really intentional. It just happened to be the way things worked out. But I am glad they worked out that way. It gave me the opportunity to better understand what I need and what I don’t need. I found it is actually pretty easy to live without refrigeration as long as you don't eat a lot of meat. Of course I had to give up ice cream and go really short on cheese, butter, yogurt, and other dairy products. But it felt good knowing that I was not dependent on a fridge. It felt good knowing that if the power went out it just meant I wouldn't have lights that evening. It felt good being able to wash my clothes by hand and hang them out to dry. It was a lot of work, I admit. And I am so very thankful for modern conveniences when I do have them, especially hot water!
I lived in a lot of places during my time in Central America, but of my favorite place is where I live now. It’s a poor community on the mainland in Bocas Del Toro, Panama. I live across the street, no across the sidewalk—there is no street—from a Jamaican lady named Noile. She is sweet as can be and brings me fruit from her trees and gets me out of trouble with the locals when they think it’s OK to take advantage of me.
The lady next door is Ngobe Bugle, full blooded. She has a gaggle of children, I am not sure how many, but the two-year-old's name is Calel which is Superman's Cryptonian name. Her husband came over once to ask to borrow five dollars for food for the baby. Her oldest child came over another time to ask the same thing. I loaned them the money and they paid me back, a rarity in these parts.
There is something wonderful about living in a poor community. The kids help me with my garden. Lee plays football with them in the yard. I am becoming part of the community and getting to see what it’s like from the inside.
And I have learned a lot.
So what have a learned about poverty?
1. It isn’t what we think it is.
2. It seems to stem from money.
Interesting story...
I went to visit the Watsi in Costa Rica. They live in the foothills of the Talamanca Mountains near the Caribbean coast. My visit was very enlightening to say the least.
I went with a friend of mine and a guide. We were dropped off by the taxi at the entrance to a path through the woods where chocolate trees and mango trees vied for space in the thick jungle. A blue morpho butterfly, a sign off good luck according to the Mayans, flitted across the path and I watched his blazing blue wings catch the light as he disappeared between the trees. Ahead was a bridge, a swinging bridge.
Now there are swinging bridges built for adventures seekers that want to see the beauty of Costa Rica, and then there are swinging bridges that are built for everyday use by local people. The two are not the same. Trust me, the adventure seeker's bridges are much safer.
This particular swinging bridge was strung between the two steep sides of a ravine. Beneath it was a rushing river. We climbed up about oh, twenty steps to get to the bridge. The ravine plunged four stories down. But I wasn't looking.
I love adventure. In fact, I seek it out. But when I encounter real experiences, not the Disneyland kind, I have learned to take them seriously and be careful. The bridge did swing quite a bit and we crossed it one at a time to avoid weird cross-swinging. The railings were quite low making it difficult to balance correctly because you had to lean quite far forward to grasp the cable safety lines. I imagine this was because the Watsi are small people. The bridge was built for them, after all, not for silly tourists like me.
But the worst part was the condition of the wooden slats. It always comes back to those rotting wooden slats. Some were not nailed down properly. Some were showing signs of wear and some had actual holes in them.
I chose my steps carefully, wondering how much of an idiot I was as the fall would not exactly be fun. But I was determined to act as if it didn’t bother me in the least and I really was excited about visiting those gentle people.
On the other side, I thankfully put my feet on green earth again. The village was charming. The grass was trimmed, probably with a machete, but possibly with a weed-whacker. The homes were built on waist-high stilts, I imagine to keep everything dry and to keep unwelcomed wild-type visitors from making uninvited visits. I know snakes are a real problem in Coast Rica and fer-de-Lance and bushmaster both live in the area. BIG black panthers also populate the surrounding jungle. Not that a little high-rise would keep these creatures completely at bay, but they might discourage home invasion a bit.
The roofs were of woven palm leaves, beautifully done in a straight overlapping line pattern. The walls were wood and only went up half way, allowing the breeze to blow through the homes and giving a feeling of real connectedness with the vine covered trees that stretched so far overhead you had to put a crick in your neck to see the tops.
The village owned a sacred grove of cacao trees that were guarded by hand-carved stone statues of warriors with red painted eyes, most likely dyed red with achiote berries. And I also noticed a hand-carved crocodile on the path to the cacao trees, another totem designed for protection and possibly good luck.
The people of Watsi have been at that particular location for five generations. The oldest resident and original founder of the village just died two years ago at the ripe old age of one hundred and twelve! I got to meet his great grand-daughter and I also got to meet the village medicine man. Both spoke fluent Spanish and their native tongue. My Spanish isn’t great, but it is tolerable and I was excited to chat a little with them.
They have made some changes over the years and adopted a few western things, most importantly, western clothes. The young lady showed me an example of a man's loin cloth/skirt made from bark pulled into tiny threads and woven into a stiff cloth. I said it didn’t look very comfortable. She agreed. She was wearing a green skirt and white top and the medicine man was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans and had several strands of beautiful stones and teeth hanging about his neck. There were a few plastic storage containers in the room, but other than that, everything appeared to be basically the same as it would have been when the village was founded.
It was clean.
Other village members were working in a happy and industrial fashion. Smoke was coming from the open fire in the kitchen and lunch smelled delicious. Kids were laughing and playing. A few dogs were lolling about, healthy looking dogs, I might add, not the typical rib revealing pups of other Indian villages I had been in.
As I listened to their story, I learned that about ten years ago, the government allocated money to build modern homes in the Watsi village. They purchased concrete and glass and rebar and all the building materials needed for modern houses and were ready to make what they considered to be a generous donation to these simple people. But when the elders of the village got wind of it, they wanted nothing to do with it.
Never-the-less, the government insisted that they had already bought the materials and they were going to drop them off and the villagers could do whatever they wanted to with the stuff.
So, a few months later men came across that same bridge I so carefully walked across carrying loads of heavy modern building materials and they unceremoniously dumped everything in the lower part of the village.
And there it sat.
The older people in the village did not touch it, but eventually, one by one, younger people started building houses.
Now there is a section of the Watsi village the consists of small, modern concrete homes.
I went there to observe and take some photos.
I was disappointed.
The concrete homes are not well cared for like the traditional grass-roofed homes. The area is dirty. It has that distinct look of poverty seeping in.
I don't know why. I don't know if it is because the homes are owned by people in the younger generation and they just don’t keep things nice like their grandparents do or if it is because they don’t know how to take care of these kinds of homes. But I do see that the traditional, thatched-roof and bamboo homes are lovely and the concrete ones are rapidly falling into disrepair.
Which brings me to the conditions of another village I have been in.
There is a Ngobe village on the far end on Isla Colon, the main island in Bocas Del Toro, Panama. It is Ubaldinos’ La Solution. I don’t know why they call it that because it certainly is not a solution to anything. It is built in the marsh. The homes are on stilts above the water and wooden walkways run from house to house to provide a dry place to walk. Of course the wood is rotting in many places and not nailed together in some and bowed in others and altogether dangerous to walk on. And believe me, you would not want to fall into the marsh.
Trash comes in with the tide. Tons of it. But that is not the worst problem. The homes do not have indoor plumbing. What should go into a septic tank goes directly into the water below the houses. And during low tide, the kids play in it.
Waterborne disease is a big problem and birth defects are rampant.
But everyone has a cell phone.
These people want to transition into a more modern life. They want to connect with friends and family and a cell phone gives them the power to do that. They are very relational people. Family means everything to them. They like to wear nice clothes. Most of the women have jewelry and purses and the kids are dressed in nice clothing. The men usually wear jeans and button up shirts and the women are almost always found in skirts. The school kids’ white shirts are spotless, which I have no idea how they do, because I can’t keep my white shirts clean to save my life. But the health conditions are deplorable.
Most of the people who live in La Solution are from another island further out called San Cristobal. San Cristobal has no roads and just a few sidewalks. It is MUCH cleaner and has plenty of land with big fincas, or farms, owned by the Ngobe. So I asked people who live in La Solution why they live there and not on San Cristobal where they are from. Most are there because they want to live closer to town so they can find work.
Which brings me back to the money issue.
These people could be living on a farm, raising chickens and growing their own food and building homes from bamboo and palm, but they feel the need to modernize. They want to live in town. They say they want to work, but the reality is, most of them do not. And THAT is what is creating the conditions they are living in.
Then there is the rice and sugar issue.
Rice fills your belly. Sugar makes things taste good. But together they do not provide the nutrition needed for healthy development and growth.
The Ngobe who live in the Bocas Del Toro region of Panama are traditionally fishermen and farmers. They have been living off the land since Christopher Columbus landed there and tried to steal it from them. In an effort to integrate into modern society, they have started selling the food they produce. Which seems like a good idea. But here's how it goes.
A fisherman catches a fish and bring it to market. He doesn’t eat the fish, because it brings a good price. So he sells it for a few dollars then takes the money and buys sugar and rice (the government gives the Ngobe special prices on these items and they typically buy them in fifty pound bags). Then he takes the rest of the money and buys minutes for his cell phone (and possibly beer).
It seems like a good trade off on the surface. But let’s expand it.
He sells his fish. The he goes into the jungle and collects super fruits like mammon chino (what we call lychee) and wild limes and coconuts and bananas and rose apples and wild mangoes and papaya and bread fruit and jack fruit...should I keep going? The point is, the jungle is packed with amazing, super nutritious, delicious fruit. So he goes and collects it and brings it to market.
He does not eat it.
Remember, all he eats is rice and sugar. And all he feeds his children is rice and sugar. Yes, rice fills a hungry belly and sugar tastes good, but it is not enough. Your brain needs good fats to develop properly, the kind that fisherman would have found in his fish. And it needs protein and vitamins and minerals. And those kids need the nutrition in order to learn properly. In fact, I believe the overall IQ of these people is dropping due to their lack of good nutrition, which they have, but they sell, because they want minutes for their cell phones.
So there is the problem.
I have been all over the world and I see that the younger generation desires to move into a modern world. One they see on TV and on the internet. I understand the desire to stay in touch with loved ones and I also see what the love of money is doing to entire people groups. I would like to re-define poverty and I will do just that in a subsequent chapter. But for now let’s just be aware of the problems caused by the pursuit of wealth and modern amenities.
Some solutions could possibly be:
1. The Ngobe have a simple art form they have been practicing for centuries and I believe we could market that and bring money in by selling art instead of selling food.
2. Teach gardening to the children. They love to dig in the dirt and just about anything will grow in the area. We could dramatically increase the amount of food production by making gardening cool again.
I know there are lots of other ideas out there, and I am sure you will think of some. I would love to hear them. Right now, these two seem fairly easy to do and sustainable, which is very important. We can’t teach gardening by buying lots of seeds and miracle grow. We have to teach them how to use the seeds from food they eat and how to garden organically with whatever is available locally for zero cost.
But it’s the making these things cool that is the really important part.
The younger generation is all about what is happening on the TV and the internet. They look at what the first world countries are doing and try to emulate that. Oddly enough, here in the US there is a big movement to go back to organic gardening and self-sustaining lifestyles.
So what if we could connect the two? What if we could bring people in first world countries to third world countries where they could participate in a vibrant exchange of education and culture? What if we first worlders could learn about living with rain water and solar power and harvesting wild food and medicine and we could teach third worlders modern gardening methods and how to harvest plants without damaging them long term and how to fish sustainably.
It all sounds great, doesn’t it?
I think we could make some progress starting with one small community and getting to know the people and building trust and working together. It would take dedication and time. We could put together a program where first worlders could come visit and work and share and inspire and be inspired...well I am getting ahead of myself, but this is my idea and it is in the works.
Baby steps. We will take baby steps, but at least we will start.